


Begin Again

by minandmic



Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: 1970s AU, 70s AU, AU, Begin Again, Begin again au, F/M, Outlander - Freeform, Outlander AU, internallydeceased, jamie x claire, outlander fanfic, outlander fanfiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2018-11-01 03:31:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10913439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minandmic/pseuds/minandmic





	1. When We Collide

**_Oxford, England_ **

**_22nd September 1976_ **

 

It's the little things that we rarely notice: those smaller, seemingly irrelevant memories that always lead to more memorable ones. We seem to forget that these events, when put in succession, can eventually change our lives forever. The aftermath can often times leave us in a state that we can never truly recover from, and can even change us into completely different people; people that we wouldn't even recognize. 

 

These events are usually ones we often see in films and literature; we  _ never _ expect that they can happen to us. But the fact of the matter is that these things _do_ happen, and they can happen to  _ anyone _ . 

 

One tiny fraction of a second is all it takes to change everything. Your whole world turns upside down: you can't tell which way is up or which way is down. **But** **_these_ ** **moments-- they're** **_only the beginning._ **

 

***

 

It happened on an ordinary September morning, only there wasn't anything  _ ordinary _ about it. Or at least, not yet. 

 

It started just like any other day: he woke up to the blaring of his alarm clock, promptly hitting the snooze button so he could sleep for just  _ one more minute.   _ Then one turned into twenty and he was going to be late for work…  _ again.  _ He jumped out of bed and hopped into the shower, grabbing his toothbrush on the way in hopes of conserving the few valuable minutes he had left. 

 

After a two-minute shower (this allowed him only to rub shampoo in his hair while attempting to brush his teeth, then haphazardly rubbing the small bar of soap over his body), he hastily got dressed and was about to head out the door until he realized he had put his shirt on backwards. 

 

With his shirt righted, he grabbed a quick snack on his way out the door and had practically inhaled it before he had even reached his car. 

 

Ordinary. Normal. Routine. 

 

He got in his car and started the long drive to work. 

 

_ Ordinary. Normal. Routine.  _

 

Everything was normal. 

 

**_Until it wasn't._ **

 

One minute he was singing along to the radio as he made his way through the busy streets of Oxford and the next, he was lying in the middle of the street, hanging onto life by a single thread.

 

A fraying thread that was about to break. 

 


	2. Limbo

_**Oxford, England** _   
_**22nd September 1976** _

One moment. One tiny, _insignificant_ moment, and his entire world shifted.

It was a head-on collision with a semi: the driver fell asleep at the wheel and veered right in front of him. Jamie didn't have any time to react; it had all happened so fast.

It was more than likely that he wouldn't remember any of it, due to the damage to his brain. But his life was no longer in his hands.

First responders arrived at the scene almost five minutes--five _long_ minutes--after it happened. He was unconscious, lying in the middle of the road. The impact of the crash had ejected him from his seat, through the windshield, and onto the street.

The list of injuries were endless: from broken bones to open wounds. Some of the shards of glass from the windows had embedded themselves into his skin, but the rest was scattered on the concrete around him.

The biggest concern of the medical team was his head and spinal cord. It was impossible to tell what state they were in, given that the patient unconscious. They worked as fast as they could to get him on the stretcher and immobilized, while also being careful enough not to jostle him too much. Once he was secured inside the ambulance, he was rushed to the A&E.

He was only going to work. It was supposed to be like any other day.

None of this was supposed to happen.

* * *

 

They took him from the ambulance directly into the OR, assessing the damage and figuring out how to proceed from there.

Over the course of the next few months, he would be in that OR three times.

His condition was critical and he couldn't be under anesthesia for very long, so the surgeries had to be spread out, allowing his body time to recover.

He sustained multiple injuries: right leg broken in two places, once in the left; multiple cracked and broken ribs; the right shoulder dislocated and the radius of the left arm severely fractured. A back full of glass, some pieces almost three inches long. Some internal bleeding in the abdomen, but luckily the medical team had found the source in time to stop it. If they hadn't, it would have caused his brain to hemorrhage and, ultimately, could have ended his life.

There was some bleeding and swelling in his brain that they had gotten under control, but there was no telling the prognosis until he was conscious. Miraculously, however, his spinal cord had remained unharmed.

His right hand was the worst of it: the bones of his ring finger were almost completely shattered, the middle finger a compound fracture, the bone sticking obtrusively through the skin. They predicted that he wouldn't regain full range of motion in that hand again, but with lots of physical therapy it could come close.

The first surgery was getting the bleeding in his abdomen and brain under control, as well as the swelling. Then, debriding his back and several other places on his body, followed by cleaning every wound to reduce the risk of infection.

Unfortunately, that was all they could do for the day.

The next day was setting the broken bones. Everything went relatively smooth until they got to his hand, which took the longest.

The very last surgery consisted entirely of applying the skin grafts to his back.

After a few weeks, he was able to breathe on his own. In the days that followed, they remained hopeful that he would recover. They waited for him to wake up, each day hoping that _today_ would be the day.

 

But the days went by, and he never did.


	3. As If In a Dream

**_As If In a Dream  
Oxford, England_ **

He didn’t remember the crash, the moments leading up to it, nor the few seconds he was conscious afterward. The next thing he knew he was in a hospital, staring down at his own mangled body. **  
**

At first he thought it all a dream. Only, the _dream_  never seemed to end. He willed himself to wake up, to end the nightmare that felt all too real.

Except it was real, and he was no longer inside of his body.

* * *

He witnessed all of it. Every single thing that his body of flesh and bone endured at the hands of nurses and doctors.

He watched himself waste away into almost nothing, and no matter how much he wanted or tried to pull himself from his comatose state, it was of no use.

He wanted to wake up, to return to his family—his  _life_ —but he wasn’t sure how.

* * *

He had been loved from the first, even when he was merely a thought in his mother’s head. He had been forged by a love stronger and bigger than perhaps the Earth itself.

The second his parents had learned of his impending arrival, that love had only grown. And it wasn’t just his parents, either. His older siblings, Willie and Jenny were so excited to have another brother or sister to play and share their lives with.

Then it was nine months of waiting and wishing and dreaming of who their child would be, and who they would become.

On the first of May, 1954, James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser was born, the son of Ellen and Brian. He was a beautiful, healthy baby boy that possessed his mother’s copper hair and as they would later find out, her ocean blue eyes as well.

Jamie had grown up on an estate known as “Lallybroch” in the highlands of Scotland. He and the rest of his siblings were all homeschooled by their mother, and when they weren’t schooling, Jamie and Willie would help their father tend to the farm.

When he was six, Jamie lost his brother to pneumonia. Jamie had followed Willie around almost everywhere, so much so that Willie had begun referring to his little brother as his “shadow”. Willie was his best friend and everything Jamie aspired to be, until it was all ripped away.

Two years later, he lost his mother and baby brother to childbirth. They were never the same after that.

The years following seemed to bleed together, as he found himself simply surviving instead of living.

Then, in 1975 when Jamie was twenty-two, he moved to Oxford to pursue higher education. He’d needed to get a job as well to keep up with his rent and tuition. It was difficult, juggling the task of being a full-time student while maintaining a part-time job.

He would work in the mornings, and attend class at night. He never thought that simply driving to work would drastically change  _everything._

Twenty-three years of life, twenty-three years of happiness and sadness, love and loss—all of it, ripped away in a second.

* * *

As soon as they’d learned of the accident and Jamie’s condition, his family had immediately booked a one-way ticket to Oxford. His father, his sister Jenny and brother-in-law Ian, and their son—his namesake—wee Jamie, had all come to visit him and pray for his recovery.

They would cry and beg with some unseen force for his life and recovery, all to no avail.

Jamie himself (or the spirit of him) stood witness to it all, trying to comfort his family and give them some solace, to let them know that he was there, and that he was listening.

Yet his words fell on deaf ears, and all he could do was stand there and watch his family as they prepared themselves for yet another loss.

* * *

Time passed but they remained much the same. Frozen in some space of time where there was nothing but pain and sorrow. As long as Jamie was unconscious, they would be stuck in that space in time praying to a God that they began to doubt even existed.

Jamie himself (or at least what remained of him) did his best to remain hopeful and fight for his life, but with each passing day it only seemed to become more and more futile.

_I’m tired. So verra tired. I’m not sure I can do it anymore, I’m sorry._

The steady, constant beeping of the heart monitor at his bedside suddenly flatlined; And once again, the life of Jamie Fraser hung in the balance.


	4. At First Sound

_**At First Sound  
** _ _**Oxford, England  
** _ __**6th December, 1976**

We never think the last time is going to be the last. We do things seemingly everyday until one day we just stop, without a second thought. It’s only when we look back that we realize we no longer do something that was once a part of our daily routine; or that we no longer speak to someone who we used to tell everything to. Yet when we look back, we can’t seem to remember that last time–cannot pinpoint the exact moment that marked the end.

But life goes on, whether we want it to or not. The minutes–hours– _days_ – go on without hesitation, waiting for nothing and no one. Each day we are given a choice: the choice to go forward and adapt to the ever-changing world, or get left behind; stuck in a place that no longer exists, and never  _will_  exist again. We can dwell on the past, conjure those moments and memories in our dreams in an attempt to relive that one moment. Yet now, they are only shadows; hollow shells of what once was that will continue to decay until it turns to dust. We can try and hold on, keep the memory locked away somewhere safe in our hearts; but each day the memory becomes less and less clear.

So, what do we choose? Do we stay in the past where it’s familiar and safe, or do we move on?

Do we choose to live, or do we choose to die?

* * *

 _Life_. He chose life. At the last possible second, when he was about to let go of everything he was and  everything he hoped to be– he chose life.

It wasn’t Jenny or Ian, his father or even wee Jamie. It was the voice of a woman who he didn’t know; a  _complete_  and total  _stranger._

It seemed like an eternity to Jamie, and to everyone else in the room, but in reality it was only a minute.

A minute where his heart stopped beating and his brain was deprived of oxygen, but in that minute, there was a voice.

_“Don’t you dare give up now, you bloody bastard!”_

_And then, a heartbeat._

* * *

The human mind is a strange and beautiful thing. Our brain—consciousness— is unique to each and every person. Folds of tissue that hold millions upon billions of neurons and synapses of electricity that allow us to have thoughts and memories, senses and emotions, among millions of other things. Our brain is the part that makes us _who we are._

Between the time someone falls asleep and the time they wake up, it seems as if no time has passed at all. You simply close your eyes one second, and by the time you open them, a new day has dawned.

But when our consciousness is  _not_ bound to the physical body, it is suddenly very different.

Perhaps it’s our soul; the part that makes you yourself and no one else.

The part that some religions believe goes on to live a life after death somewhere beyond this universe.

When we die, our consciousness—or whatever else it may be—no longer resides in the body of flesh and bone in which we have lived our entire lives. When the heart stops beating and the brain is deprived of blood and oxygen— no longer do we belong to the world of the living.

We go on to live a life free from physical harm, while our body is left to rot and decay until it is indistinguishable from the earth itself.

But what about when you are  _not_ dead. When our hearts are still beating, when air still fills our lungs, when our blood ebbs and flows throughout. What about when we are  _alive_ , but  _we_  are no longer _inside_ our body.

For months Jamie was stuck in this state of being, a soul outside of the body but still connected in some way. It was like some sort of tether that bound him to his body, and once that tether was severed, death would follow.

Ever since that brush with death, it was as if that tether had suddenly snapped and pulled him back into his body. He was no longer having some out of body experience, but, he could still hear everything around him–  _vividly._  He could faintly feel the needles entering and leaving his body. But he could not see. He was alive and he was aware of his surroundings, but he was still comatose. He was blind,  _but he was there._

* * *

It was hell on earth. Being alive and conscious in some  _small_  way, but outwardly he might as well have been dead.

He could hear  _everything_. Every time Jenny sobbed and begged for her brother’s return, he would scream that he was there and that he was _trying,_  but she could not hear him. Nor could his father or anyone else for that matter.

Jamie was being held prisoner in his own body—his own  _mind_. And it was  _exhausting._

But, there was one tiny ray of hope in the never ending abyss of black;  _Claire_.

From what he could put together, she was a new resident that had been assigned to his case. The first time he ever heard her voice was when he was dying, and it was like that one missing piece in a puzzle that suddenly fell into place, completing the picture.

She came by every day after that, apparently she was a new resident that had been assigned to his case.

And every day he looked forward to when she would come into that room and check his vitals while speaking to him as if he were awake, and not some vegetable lying in a hospital bed.

Once Claire entered Jamie’s life, he wanted nothing more than to wake up and see the woman who possessed that  _beautiful_  voice. It was then that Jamie was determined to fight, and  _win_.

* * *

“Good morning, Jamie!” Claire chirped as she came into  his room. During the past few weeks, Jamie had made huge strides towards his recovery. He had improved so much within such little time that the rest of Claire’s colleagues had taken to calling her a miracle worker.

“I don’t know if you can hear me but, could you do me a favor and wake up? Because for as many strides as you’re making, none of it will really matter until you wake up, and that’s when the real work begins.” She had righted the blankets on his bed, pulling the blanket up towards his chest and tucking him in like a small child.

“And, it really would make a lot of people happy…” She placed her stethoscope back around her neck and began to head into the hall again, but paused in the doorway. “And i’m not just talking about your family.” Right before she left the room, she could’ve  _sworn_ she saw him smile.


End file.
